It didn't really hit me until I was sitting in a Starbucks on NYU's campus. I sat in a plush armchair, sipping on my syrupy caramel macchiato, as students seemed to suddenly flood around me faster than I could say "Welcome Week."
It was a stark contrast to the previous two weeks in which I had started my new internship, when this particular Starbucks was rarely filled with more than five or six patrons. The hordes of future NYU alumni were now monopolizing almost all of the once spacious room. But I didn't mind - it gave me a chance to examine the heroin chic females and super-skinny male physiques of the student population.
I started to mentally compare them to the J. Crew catalogue of the Boston College campus, and it was that precise moment in which it hit me. I was there with the NYU kids instead of moving back into BC. For the first time in four years, it was September, and I was not in Chestnut Hill.
I'd like to say that I took this realization well. I'd like to say that I simply threw up my hands and exclaimed, "C'est la vie," as the Irish girl band Bewitched had done when I was in the fifth grade. I'd like to say the future I saw for myself was so bright it blinded my nostalgia. I'd like to say those things, but I can't. What did happen was very different.
I pushed the idea to the back of my mind, so I could resume my trek to work and be a semi-functional human being. I succeeded in this task (I think) and proceeded at the end of the day to Penn Station to board NJ Transit back to my hometown. And that's where it hit me again - hard. Luckily, the rest of the commuting community had the foresight not to sit next to me. They must have sensed that a storm was a' brewing.
I literally started to cry 10 minutes into my train ride. Not loud, obnoxious sobs mind you, because I still had a shred of dignity left, but there were definite tears.
The truth is - and this is a spoiler alert to all current seniors - senior week and graduation give you no time to get the proper closure one would need to leave BC. If you were in a four-year relationship, and you went from seeing your significant other ever day to never seeing them again, how would you feel? What about if he or she told you it was imperative that you be emotionally ready to leave the relationship by 8 p.m. the same day? How would you feel then?
My guess is that you would be hurt, confused, and sent directly into a little territory called "denial." So who, pray tell, ever in their right mind thought this was a good plan to employ against the graduating seniors of BC?
What people don't tell you is that the stress of graduation day does not leave much time to be sentimental. Of course, the class of 2009 had it particularly hard, seeing as how it must have been about 20 degrees colder than the average May temperature with a steady mist clouding our emotions - not to mention the rock-a-by baby commencement speech given by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.
As I walked off the field to get my friends and I bought a hot pretzel with one last swipe of my Eagle One Card, I heard at least three people say it was the worst graduation they had ever been to. Between these (literally) cold, hard facts and my refusal to let my parents see me get emotional, I refused to acknowledge that this was the end of my college career. Right, because it was obviously better to acknowledge it while riding NJ Transit.
It has been a comfort to talk to my fellow graduates and learn that I am not alone in this September realization. Despite always wanting to move to the South, my friend who goes to graduate school in Georgia constantly talks about how even though she's still technically in college, the experience just isn't the same.
She misses the sensation of walking across campus and knowing 50 percent of the people she passes by in some way, shape or form. Friends who thought they were ready to graduate are catching a case of the BC blues and trying to plan a pilgrimage back. It's not that the real world is as scary as all of us expected because it has honestly been relatively painless.
College just grabs you in a way that high school never could, and when it comes time to let go four years later, nothing can properly prepare you to finally release your grip.
Be the first to comment on this article!